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The sermon grounds peace in the character and work of the Triune God. The Father plans redemption, Christ makes peace between God and humanity through His atonement, and God restores and preserves peace among His people. Spurgeon warns that sin, doctrinal error, envy, anger, ambition, and pride threaten church unity. Because believers share one Father, one faith, one Savior, and one heavenly destination, they should pray together, love one another, defend one another, and refuse needless quarrels.
Theological center: The Triune God reconciles sinners to Himself through Christ and calls His redeemed people to embody that peace together.
Applications: Strive together in prayer · Reject church division · Do not quarrel along the way · Love and defend fellow believers
Primary texts: Romans 15:33 · Matthew 5:9 · Ephesians 4:5
“Now the God of peace be with you all. Amen.” Romans 15:33 PAUL once advised the Romans to strive. Three verses before our text he actually gives them an exhortation to strive and yet he here utters a prayer that the God of peace might be with them all. Lest you should think him to be a man of strife, you must read the verse. He says, “Now I beseech you, brethren, for the Lord Jesus Christ’s sake, and for the love of the spirit, that ye strive together with me in your prayers to God for me.” That is a holy strife and such a strife as that we wish always to see in the church, a strife in prayer, a surrounding the throne together, besieging God’s mercy seat, a crying out before God, until it actually amounts to a striving together in our prayers. There is also another kind of striving which is allowed in the church, and that is striving earnestly after the best gifts—a sweet contention which of us shall excel all others in love, in duty, and in faith. May God send us more strife of that kind in our churches, a strife in prayer, a strife in duty. And when we have mentioned these strifes, we find them of so peaceable a kind that we come back to the benediction of our text, “Now the God of peace be with you all. Amen.” Without any preface, we shall consider, first, the title, “The God of peace.” And secondly, the benediction, “The God of peace be with you all. Amen.” I. First of all, THE TITLE. Mars amongst the heathens, was called the god of war. Janus was worshipped in periods of strife and bloodshed. But our God JEHOVAH styles Himself not the God of war, but the God of peace. Although He permits war in this world, sometimes for necessary and useful purposes. Although He superintends them and has even styled Himself the Lord, mighty in battle, yet His holy mind abhors bloodshed and strife. His gracious Spirit loves not to see men slaughtering one another. He is emphatically, solely, and entirely, and without reserve, “the God of peace.” Peace is His delight. “Peace on earth and goodwill towards men.” Peace in heaven (for that purpose He expelled the angels). Peace throughout His entire universe is His highest wish and His greatest delight. If you consider God in the Trinity of His persons for a few moments, you will see that in each— Father, Son, and Holy Ghost—the title is apt and correct, “the God of peace.” There is God the Everlasting Father. He is the God of peace, for He from all eternity planned the great covenant of peace, whereby He might bring rebels nigh unto Him, and make strangers and foreigners fellow-heirs with the saints and joint-heirs wit…